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Reading is more important to the meaning of the 'Kingis Quair' than it is to the meaning of Chaucer's dream poems. This point is demonstrated by an analysis of PF.

"The Plowman's Tale," first appearing in Chaucer's "Works" in 1542, and the "Pilgrim's Tale," printed not earlier than 1536, both clearly based on earlier material, could be clever forgeries or retouched, but substantially genuine, medieval poems. …

Dryden's use of the term in the Preface to the "Fables" echoes Chaucer's use in CT I, 3162, "Goddes foyson." Chaucer's use has sexual overtones. Immediately after using it, Dryden explains that he will not translate Chaucer's indecent tales; so he…

In his defense of poetry as an ideal instrument to develop common sense, or "good mother wyt," in the "Dialogue" of 1529, More frequently alludes to Chaucer as a fountainhead of this admirable faculty.

That "Daphnaida" is based on BD has long been recognized. But whereas Chaucer's poem works within the conventions to assuage grief, Spenser's anti-pastoral produces an uncomfortable tension between instruction and pity.

Like Chaucer before him, Spenser uses the literary complaint with greatest success, not as a separate genre, but to heighten the dramatic context of larger works.

Dryden's alterations of Chaucer's narrative division, versification, motif and thematic emphasis, and character portrayal follow his avowed principles of translation. But his alterations in the "spirit" of Chaucer's tale violate one of his important…

Two references by Stephen Hawes to Chaucer (along with Gower and Lydgate) not noted by Spurgeon are contained in "The Comforte of Hope." The unique copy of this work, printed by Wynkyn de Worde about 1512, is in The British Library.

Elizabethan and Jacobean writers found Chaucer a major poet. The poems most frequently used--TC, KnT, and ClT--show that they regarded Chaucer as a romantic not a comic writer. He is used for a brief reference or quotation, a subsidiary source, or…

Chaucer frequently gives his characters gestures which are not in his sources in order more fully to reflect the inner lives of the actors. His most frequent gestures center on eyes and faces.

The Canterbury pilgrimage is, among other things, an attempt by some of the pilgrims to sublimate the sex drive.

The basic narrative unit is limited to nine possible combinations. These combinations can be illustrated by application to the four tales of the Marriage Group in CT. These nine relationships can also be applied to characters, to the relationships…

Fisher's reading "wight" (1977) in WBT 117 is preferable to Donaldson's "wrighte." FranT 867-72 contains phrasing which is reminiscent of Fisher's proposed meaning of WBT 117: "And created by so wise a Being."

Jankyn's theories of the dissemination of sound and odor coincide precisely with those of medieval science as presented by Albertus Magnus in his "Liber de sensu et sensato." Chaucer draws upon these widely disseminated medieval views rather than…

The point of the proverb that a man may not sin with his own wife or cut himself with his own knife is reversed in MerT. Chaucer intends the effect of surprise to create a sense of the nature and significance of January's wrong headedness.

Search for the title of this volume under Alternative Title for individual essays that pertain to Chaucer.

The Pardoner, making, through structure, game of his tale's morality and morality of its game, wishes the Pilgrims to play gullible churchgoers and to depose the Host, who rebuffs him. NPT's structure reveals covert anti-feminism manifesting the…

The Middle Ages had developed a sophisticated semiotic theory. The legend of Troy permitted poets to explore language as the living expression of the social order. The principal sphere of action of TC is words, not swordblows or even kisses.

The storm imagery in TC reinforces the emotional turmoil revealed in the narrative.

Argues for the later date on two counts. First, discrepancies in the records allow only the conclusion that in 1361 Blanche was at least 14 years of age. Second, the custom of early marriage makes plausible that Blanche was only 12 when married in…

Verbal action in Chaucer may take the form of a series of verbal encounters, as in BD; or a long monologue, as Dorigen's is and Chauntecleer's may as well be. Chauntecleer talks himself out of fear of dreams; Dorigen talks herself out of suicide;…

Small debates turn on method, large debates on content--goals and purposes. Chaucer's BD and the Old English "Solomon and Saturn" are comparable big debates. In BD the Dreamer is converted, not refuted, when he recognizes the "routhe" the Knight…

The Boethian neo-platonic truth (man is immortal) gives insight into love's complexities and purpose and thematic unity to the "Somnium" precis and the love-vision. Nature's "governaunce" over the birds, like the Boethian bond of love, parallels the…

Machaut provides the nearest precedents, the most probable chief sources, for all of Chaucer's independent love lyrics printed in Robinson except "The Complaint of Venus," wherein Chaucer follows Graunson, and "A Balade of Complaint," most probably…

Though Chaucer obliquely refers to the positive interpretation of the Mars-Venus-Vulcan myth (in the gift by Vulcan to Harmonia of a brooch), he stresses the negative--that the martial man is best advised to avoid the temptations of love. The…